Knights Unafraid To Fight

Prolife Profile

Father Richard Heilman calls himself a “country priest.” If
his self-assessment is accurate, more’s the glory owed to God for doing great
things through the simple and the humble. For this is one country priest on a
city-size mission. He’s out to move men into spiritually reclaiming a culture
that has all but surrendered to the forces of “secular barrenness.”

To win this battle, Father Heilman founded the Knights of
Divine Mercy in his small parish communities of Pine Bluff and Mount Horeb,
Wis., in the Diocese of Madison. The Knights is a movement of Catholic men who
explore masculine spirituality and are submissive to God’s will, committed to
growing in heroic virtue, empowered by prayer and the sacraments and engaged in
bringing back souls to the faith.

The Knights of Divine Mercy is open to all men 18 and older.
The group meets monthly on first Fridays for prayer before the Eucharist,
confession, a teaching lesson from a priest and a social. More than 80 of the
original group were knighted in a ceremony on Divine Mercy Sunday in April,
2007. Father Heilman knighted them with an authentic Scottish Claymore while
stating their Latin slogan, Deo Submissus, in Deo Potens (“The one who has
submitted to God is powerful in God”).

Citing 2 Timothy 3:5, Father Heilman says that, “in the last
days, they’ll make a pretense out of religion; they’ll deny its power.”

The place to start acting with God’s power, he adds, is with
men.

“We’ve been spiritual sissies, and it’s time for us to
become warriors again,” he says. “We need to get grafted back on the vine
because once you’re tethered to the transcendent, you’re tethered to truth. But
once you’re disconnected from the divine, you become disconnected from the
truth and you’re left in the narcissistic wasteland of moral relativism.”

He equips his “warriors” with a camouflaged “battle pack”
filled with spiritual weaponry such Catholic devotional materials, a
steel-beaded rosary, holy water, blessed salt, a scapular and six Miraculous
Medals to hand out in their “search-and-rescue” efforts to win souls.

Father Heilman discovered firsthand the power of the spirit
in his own community of Pine Bluff. When a “gentleman’s club” opened in 2005,
the priest worried that it would become “Porn Bluff.” He organized a “prayer
mile” and invited parishioners to walk the mile in prayer and tie a white
ribbon on the cross in the parish cemetery. Almost 700 ribbons were tied to the
cross. Six months later the strip club was gone — and today the site is a
family-friendly diner where the Knights socialize after meetings.

“You cannot get rid of these strip clubs,” says Father
Heilman. “They are more protected under the First Amendment than babies in the
womb. So we asked the Lord to consecrate the ground back to him.” That’s where
the seeds were planted for the Knights of the Divine Mercy.

Strength Happens

Madison Bishop Robert Morlino is a strong supporter of the
Knights movement, and even requested “battle packs” for the 35 seminarians in
the diocese. He says the Knights are responding to a growing need to answer the
unique spiritual demands of men in general, and particularly husbands and
fathers.

“Husbands and fathers of deep faith make for stronger
families and parishes,” says the bishop. “Holy fatherhood emphasizes many
particular virtues, including sacrifice, courage, patience and gentleness. It
is through a man’s religious sensibility that he usually finds the strength to
embrace and exercise these virtues in daily life.

“The domestic church of the family is the essential
foundation to not only our Catholic Church, but to a just society,” adds Bishop
Morlino. “Much of the violence in our modern society can be traced to the
effects of absent or delinquent fathers who fail to serve as role models to
their children. This is where the Knights of Divine Mercy come to the rescue.”

Many Catholic men have been “quite uninspired and
unmotivated” by the spirituality that has been offered over the past few
decades, says Father Heilman. He compares the era to the 40 years the
Israelites wandered he desert.

“We’ve felt the barrenness of the desert, waiting for the
fruits of the Vatican Council. There’s a lot being written lately about how
women have had to hold up the fort because the men have fled from the kind of
Church and liturgy that we’ve proposed in the last 40 years,” he says. “Now we
have such heroic bishops and so many others who courageously say it’s time we
retrieve the supernatural in our faith and call men to that. We want men to
become ignited again.”

Triumph Over Torpor

At age 66, Bob Winter was greatly touched when knighted with
the sword and is happy to finally “get something good” in the way of male
spirituality.

“A lot of times you get in a group of men and all they’re talking
about is football. It’s nice to be part of a group of men who talk about the
Church and what needs to be done in our families and in our world,” he says. “I
believe the Holy Spirit will enlighten us as we go along.”

Winter’s son-in-law, Brad Gross, 33, was excited about the
group in no small part because he already had a strong devotion to the Divine
Mercy.

“I’ve noticed a difference in my depth of understanding
about how God’s mercy works in our lives and how we can be better facilitators
of his mercy,” he says. “I definitely believe the Knights are being empowered
to be leaders in their families and society. Many of the men are sharing
profound experiences and they’re seeing conversions just through using the
sacramentals and handing out Miraculous Medals.”

Father Heilman stresses that Knights of Divine Mercy
chapters need to be under the leadership of a priest because it is a spiritual
movement centered on the Eucharist.

A second chapter is forming in the eastern part of the
diocese this fall, and he hopes the movement will continue to spread. He is
scheduled to appear on EWTN’s “Life on the Rock” on Nov. 1.

Bishop Morlino says he hopes the movement will grow as more
men see that such fraternal and religious relationships can fulfill them in
their authentic masculine roles in the family, church and society at large.

“I leave it to the Holy Spirit to ultimately determine the
breadth of growth for the Knights of Divine Mercy,” he says. “And the Holy
Spirit knows of my hopes and confidence for the Knights in my loving prayer for
them.”

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